Factors Related To The Organizational Commitment Of College And University Auditors.(Statistical Data Included)

As organizations recognize the competitive advantage that can be gained through human resources, research on organizational commitment has gained importance. Determining factors related to organizational commitment may be useful on several levels. Organizational commitment has been found to be strongly related to the intention to leave one's job and to the intention to search for job alternatives. Additionally, a positive relationship has been found between organizational commitment and lateness and organizational commitment and turnover (Mathieu and Zajac, 1990). Knowledge of the antecedents of organizational commitment will enable organizations to manage these withdrawal behaviors.

One variable that has been found to affect organizational commitment is power. Power is defined as the "capacity of social actors to overcome resistance on the part of other social actors in order to achieve desired objectives or results" (Astley and Sachdeva, 1984: 104). Employees who have the power necessary to achieve results experience higher levels of commitment. In a study examining the organizational commitment of executives in the federal government, Wilson (1995) found subunit power to be significantly related to organizational commitment. Steel et al. (1992) found that employee perceptions of decision- making influence, another form of power, were positively correlated with the organizational commitment of employees at a U.S. Federal Mint.

Many bases of power have been identified. One base of power is the formal hierarchy. This formal authority is concentrated most heavily in upper management; therefore, employees at lower levels of the organization often have less ability to directly influence the organization and achieve results. Cannings (1989) found a positive relationship between hierarchical responsibility and managerial attachment to the organization. Because of the positive relationship between organizational commitment and authority, it is especially important to consider how commitment can be increased for positions with lower levels of formal authority. This study uses internal auditors as subjects to explore various job, organizational, and demographic characteristics that may be related to the organizational commitment of employees with lower levels of formal authority.

Internal auditors were chosen as the subjects in the study because the profession, by definition, cannot have the authority to make changes in an organization. Internal auditing has been defined by Lawrence Sawyer as

An independent appraisal of the diverse operations and controls within an organization to determine whether acceptable policies and procedures are followed, established standards are met, resources are used efficiently and economically, and the organization's objectives are being achieved (1981: 6).

In order to provide "an independent appraisal," internal auditors may recommend changes to operations, but cannot be responsible for implementing these changes. Internal auditors do not have the authority to directly impact their organizations' operations. According to O'Connor, "The greatest frustration for professional internal auditors is to identify areas where significant cost savings or risk reduction can be achieved, but middle management resists change and prevents the internal auditors recommendations from being implemented" (1989: 50). Management support in implementing change is vital if the auditors' recommendations are to have an effect on the organization. Studying the job, organizational, and demographic characteristics that are related to the organizational commitment of internal auditors allows us to begin to examine the variables that may result in increased commitment of employees with lower levels of authority.

Literature pertinent to organizational commitment will be briefly reviewed in the following section. The study objective and testable hypotheses will be presented after the literature review. Research methodology will be outlined where instruments, survey population, and variables will be detailed. The results, discussion, and conclusions will follow the research methodology.

Literature Review

To determine factors related to organizational commitment, the concept of organizational commitment must be clearly defined. One commonly used definition of organizational commitment was developed by Porter et al. (1974). In their definition, three factors of organizational commitment were identified: a strong belief in and acceptance of the organization's goals and values, a willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization, and a strong desire to remain in the organization. A fifteen-item organizational commitment questionnaire (OCQ) was developed to measure organizational commitment based on this definition.

Allen and Meyer (1990) separated organizational commitment into three components: affective, continuance and normative. The affective component refers to the employee's emotional attachment to, identification with, and involvement in the organization. The continuance component refers to commitment based on the costs that the employee associates with leaving the organization. The normative component refers to the employee's feelings of obligation to remain with the organization. Allen and Meyer (1990) developed a twenty-four-item scale to measure the three components of organizational commitment.

Dunham et al. (1994) used confirmatory factor analysis to determine if organizational commitment, as measured by the fifteen-item OCQ was similar to affective commitment, normative commitment, or calculative commitment. Organizational commitment as measured by the OCQ converged with the affective component of organizational commitment and diverged from the normative and continuance components. This analysis showed that the OCQ measures affective commitment.

Studies involving a variety of professions, including research scientists and engineers (Steers, 1977), employees in nursing departments (Curry et al., 1986), clergy (Baack et al., 1993), and police officers (Dunham et al., 1994), have shown that a range of variables are related to organizational commitment. These variables include organizational characteristics, job characteristics, and demographic characteristics. A review of these variables allowed us to specifically consider those that may be related to the organizational commitment of employees with lower levels of authority.

Organizational Characteristics

Employees' perceptions of organizational characteristics have been shown to be related to organizational commitment. One such characteristic, organizational support, was described by Eisenberger et al. as employees perceptions of "the extent to which the organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being" (1990: 51). Organizational support was found to be positively related to the organizational commitment of hourly employees and managerial employees in a large steel plant (Eisenberger et at., 1990) and of non-supervisory hospital employees (Settoon et at., 1996). Organizational dependability was also found to be positively related to organizational commitment (Steers, 1977). Organizational dependability was described by Buchanan as "those experiences which confirmed the important expectations of senior managers" (1974: 538). Other organizational variables that have been found to be related to organizational commitment are instrumental communication (Curry et at., 1986), group attitudes toward the organization (Steers, 1977), and satisfaction with promotion opportunities (Curry et al., 1986; Quarles, 1994).

Job Characteristics

Dimensions of employees' jobs have also been related to organizational commitment. Dunham et al. (1994) used Hackman and Oldham's (1975) Job Diagnostic Survey to measure the job characteristics of task identity, task significance, skill variety, autonomy, and feedback. All of these job characteristics were found to be positively related to organizational commitment. However, other studies have found only a partial relationship between job characteristics and organizational commitment. Steers (1977) examined the relationship between organizational commitment and four core job dimensions--autonomy, variety, feedback, and task identity. When these variables were entered into a regression model as a group, they were found to be significantly related to organizational commitment; however, when entered separately, only task identity had a significant relationship to organizational commitment for both samples studied. Similarly, Bhuian et al. (1996) found that job variety significantly influenced organizational commitment for expatriate employees in Saudi Arabia, while autonomy, identity, and feedback were not significantly related to organizational commitment.

Demographic Characteristics

Additionally, several personal and demographic characteristics have been considered in studies of organizational commitment. Mathieu and Zajac (1990) found that age and organizational tenure are positively related to organizational commitment. Sommer et al. (1996) also found that organizational commitment among Korean employees increases with age. Gender is another personal characteristic that has been studied in relation to organizational commitment. Mathieu and Zajac's (1990) meta-analysis found that women tend to be more committed than men, but the magnitude of the effect was small. Aven et al. (1993) used data from 27 independent samples to examine the relationship between gender and attitudinal commitment. Their meta-analysis found that gender and attitudinal commitment were unrelated.

Level of education is another personal characteristic that has been related to organizational commitment. Steers (1977) found that level of education was negatively related to organizational commitment. Mathieu and Zajac's (1990) meta-analysis confirmed this relationship and found that the relationship was significantly stronger for attitudinal commitment than for calculative commitment. They attribute this negative relationship to the greater number of job options that may be available to employees with higher levels of education.

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